Sushila Kadian is young short fiction writer and poet. Her stories, poems and articles have appeared in different leading journals, magazine and newspaper of the nation. The first collection of Sushila was a poetry collection titled Bottled Emotions (published by Writers Forum, Ranchi) in 1999 and the present collection under review is the collection of short fiction which she wrote while working with State Bank of India, Guwahati, Assam in an awfully hectic routine of her life. Born in Rohtak (Haryana), India, a big part of Sushila Kadian’s life was spent in North-East Region of India, so her stories of the collection too are written in the backdrop of North-East.The stories of Tales from My Diary are just the Reflection of “a very special person” called “You”, “The chirpy and happy you--- who got lost somewhere.’ (Acknowledgement) and Kadian has attempted to explore that ‘you’ in the humdrum of our busy existence. Her characters are simple, emotional unpretentious and ordinary human beings who have innocent hearts and souls that throb at anything beautiful, lovely or heart-string whether it is universal feeling of love pain or joy or certain strange ironies paradoxes occurring in everyday lives. A few stories like “Unsaid Things”, “The Guards at Paya”, “What’s wrong”, “Late Comer”, “The Pyre of Dreams”, “Sujata’s Destiny”, “A Computer Affair” and “The Wedding Card” articulate the feeling of love, hopes, mild pain, dreams and aspirations and “Just Tell Me- Why”, “The other man” , “The Last Confession “, and “The Cuckoo in The Nest” entertain and tickle the consciousness also. The art and narrative technique adopted by Kadian is also simple and forceful. The impact of these simple stories is long and lasting as it carries “female psyche” of the writer behind them. Therefore, each complex phenomenon is portrayed in simple manner because Sushila Kadain being a “Spectator” “want (s) to reach out to every individual who can leisurely read my stories and who also cares enough for the strings of relations, believes in their sanctity so as to improve the surroundings around you.” (Preface) And thus, the writer gets success in inviting to ‘breathe in mist-fresh air and open the rainbow of Hope and Happiness in your life.’

The beautiful landscape of North-East weaves the plot of most of the stories so nature remains recurrent theme in most of them. Therefore, whosever wishes to read anything fresh and light fiction must stop by the short fiction of Sushila and I am sure the readers will really enjoy ‘something good’ in their busy-bee lives.